At the beginning of the new millennium, the financial services market is experiencing a fundamental shift. More transparent and global markets through new means of communication on the one hand and better informed and more demanding customers on the other hand have led to a dramatically intensified competition. One way to circumvent cost-leadership competition is to offer individualized financial planning consulting services. In this contribution, a model to formalize financial problems and solutions under risk as an essential requirement for an IT-based financial planning process is presented, that - once implemented - may help to increase the quality of the consultation and decision support on the one hand and lower costs due to process improvements on the other hand.